News Review #3

“Wells Fargo’s September from hell”

This story on CNN Money covered an update from the breaking news from September 8th where it was revealed that Wells Fargo had over 5,300 employees that made millions of fake bank accounts. The employees involved in the scandal were fired, but other employees that were innocent and uninvolved in the creation of the unauthorized accounts were also fired. Many of these innocent workers reached out to CNN to tell them their stories of being fired simply for pointing out the company’s unethical behavior and being forced to work uncompensated overtime.

Why you selected the story:

My best friend’s husband, a UGA graduate from the class of 2011, was recently let go from Wells Fargo as a result of all of the drama that arose from the scandal. I knew that Wells Fargo was experiencing issues, but I did not know the extent of their unethical actions and wanted to know the details of the scandal.

How the story used or was treated in social media:

Following the release of the information on September 8th, Wells Fargo’s official account released a statement on Twitter later that same day that was “regarding definitive settlement agreements.” After that initial tweet, Wells Fargo released three more tweets about “making changes to make things right.”

On Twitter, #wellsfargo continues to be on the trending list as several Twitter handles would use the hashtag, and some even used tagged the company, in posts criticizing Wells Fargo for their actions.